BANTER: 3YC...

[Brent Kellmer <kellmer@u.washington.edu>]

Fair Greetings from Rodrigo!

Meli and Landi both asked me about 3YC and how things are going, so I
thought I'd tell people...

The Weather has, thus far, been completely non-AnTiran, being for the most
part hot and dry.  When I left on Tuesday night, there had been several
days of mid-80's weather, not too humid, and a couple of days where it was
in the low 70's.  It's a bit windy, and one day there were warnings that
we'd have a wind storm, but it didn't get too bad.

The site (Clark County Fairground just outside of Vancouver Washington,
just north of the Columbia River) isn't too bad.  Perhaps a bit too close
to I-5, but I understand that the freeway is a problem at Pennsic as well.
The ground is moist, but for the most part, not sodden except in a few
places, most of which aren't being used by us.  If you have hayfever, it's
probably good that you didn't go, because (due to the wet ground), the hay
fields that we're camping in weren't mowed until Wednesday 6/5, AFTER the
autocrat got on site. (He wasn't a happy camper about that).  Much of the
hay has lain about on site, piled into rows, but when I left, the county
was slowly taking care of it.  As of Tuesday, open fires had been banned
county-wide due to fire-danger, and while the ban applies to the 3YC site,
I personally didn't really think it necessary, as the grass wasn't all
that dry.

As for goings on, I haven't yet had a chance to view any of the fighting,
so with one exception, I'm not competent to comment on that -- I spent
much of my time involved in helping out with Collegium Societatis classes.
Many of these are taught by AnTirans, but there are a great number of
incredible classes taught by others from around the known world.  On the
culinary side of things, for instance, Duke Cariadoc of the Bow taught a
couple of classes on working from period sources and cooking from islamic
sources, as well as doing an Islamic feast tonight.  Caterina Schilling
(sp?) von Nurnberg (of Carolingia) did a class based on her translation of
Das Buch von Guter Spice.  Maestro Eduardo Lucrezia of AnTir did classes
on Apicius (Roman cooking) and the Epulario (15th Cent. Italian).  And of
course, my lady wife Bianca is doing one on La Varenne (1650's French).
There are about 25-30 classes (at least) each day and many seem pretty
popular, judging by the lines to get in them.

As for my one comment about the fighting, just one word sums it up:
Elephant.

I suppose it needs more elaboration:  The Barony of Madrone (here in
Seattle), designed and built a war elephant, about 10 or 12 feet tall that
was pushed around the site carrying the Baron and Baroness in state and
trailing much of the barony before going into battle in the Barony of
Lionsgate against the world battle.  It was used as a seige tower during
the battle, quite effectively, too, once the archers on top got the hang
of firing while remaining hidden behind the elephant's ears.  I've got
pictures (although not of the battle unfortunately), that I can show to
people once we get to Isenfir in August...

By and large it's been quite a fun event so far.  I believe the gate count
is around 4000-4500, but that's likely to go up starting Friday for the
last weekend.  There aren't very many Atlanteans present (my wife was
guessing only about half a dozen when she called me last night), but she
atleast has met Anarra Karlsdottir, and Mistress Jaelle is arriving today
and is in our encampment, so we'll meet her as well.

>From an autocrat's point of view (which I'm privy to since nearly all the
Madrone culinary guild of which I'm a member is involved in autocrating
and are camped together), it was a little rough at first, but it's
smoothed out.  Plenty of biffies, but the contractor delivered only about
half of the promised water reservoirs, and was initially giving us
problems about removing the gray water.  The site was also not as good
about filling the reservoirs we do have with water a couple of times a
day, but plenty of people have pitched in to help and now the water truck
makes its rounds with appropriate frequency, usually driven by someone in
garb.  There are also a couple of horse-drawn wagons that provide a
shuttle around the site, plus hoards of merchants, both in an interior
merchant's "mall" and an outside "ghetto."  Took about half an hour to
blow the week's budget and start thinking about how we could squeeze more
out of my paycheck...  Basically, all of the problems that have come up
have been handled pretty quickly and well by the autocrat (Jean-Louis de
Chambertin) and his staff, and are ones that are rooted either in
contractor problems or simply the fact that there isn't a Pennsic style
event west of Estrella war.  Of course, my suggestion to Jean-Louis that
we have a second annual 30th year celebration next year, since we'll have
worked out most of the kinks by then, wasn't greeted with overwhelming
enthusiasm.

All in all, it's a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to going back this
afternoon (I think our encampment is doing spanish food tonight...) I wish
more Atlantians had been able to get out here, but I'm looking forward to
meeting those that were able to make it.

--Rodrigo

  who keeps glancing over at the sundial in the street just outside the
front of the Merry Rose, hoping for three o'clock...



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